Trivia: The son of an Oklahoma carpet layer, James Garner did stints in the Army and merchant marines before working as a model. His professional acting career began with a non-speaking part in the Broadway play The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (1954), in which he was also assigned to run lines with stars Lloyd Nolan, Henry Fonda, and John Hodiak. Given that talent roster, and the fact that the director was Charles Laughton, Garner managed to earn his salary and receive a crash course in acting at the same time. After a few television commercials, he was signed as a contract player by Warner Bros. in 1956. He barely had a part in his first film, The Girl He Left Behind (1956), though he was given special attention by director David Butler, who felt Garner had far more potential than the film's nominal star, Tab Hunter. Due in part to Butler's enthusiasm, Garner was cast in the Warner Bros. TV Western Maverick. The scriptwriters latched on to his gift for understated humor, and, before long, the show had as many laughs as shoot-outs. Garner was promoted to starring film roles during his Maverick run, but, by the third season, he chafed at his low salary and insisted on better treatment. The studio refused, so he walked out. Lawsuits and recriminations were exchanged, but the end result was that Garner was a free agent as of 1960. He did quite well as a freelance actor for several years, turning in commendable work in such films as Boys' Night Out (1962) and The Great Escape (1963), but was soon perceived by filmmakers as something of a less-expensive Rock Hudson, never more so than when he played Hudson-type parts opposite Doris Day in Move Over, Darling and The Thrill of It All! (both 1963).Garner fared rather better in variations of his Maverick persona in such Westerns as Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) and The Skin Game (1971), but he eventually tired of eating warmed-over stew; besides, being a cowboy star had made him a walking mass of injuries and broken bones. He tried to play a more peaceable Westerner in the TV series Nichols (1971), but when audiences failed to respond, his character was killed off and replaced by his more athletic twin brother (also Garner). The actor finally shed the Maverick cloak with his long-running TV series The Rockford Files (1974-1978), in which he played a John MacDonald-esque private eye who never seemed to meet anyone capable of telling the truth. Rockford resulted in even more injuries for the increasingly battered actor, and soon he was showing up on TV talk shows telling the world about the many physical activities which he could no longer perform. Rockford ended in a spirit of recrimination, when Garner, expecting a percentage of the profits, learned that "creative bookkeeping" had resulted in the series posting none. To the public, Garner was the rough-hewn but basically affable fellow they'd seen in his fictional roles and as Mariette Hartley's partner (not husband) in a series of Polaroid commercials. However, his later film and TV-movie roles had a dark edge to them, notably his likable but mercurial pharmacist in Murphy's Romance (1985), for which he received an Oscar nomination, and his multifaceted co-starring stints with James Woods in the TV movies Promise (1986) and My Name Is Bill W. (1989). In 1994, Garner came full circle in the profitable feature film Maverick (1994), in which the title role was played by Mel Gibson. With the exception of such lower-key efforts as the noir-ish Twilight (1998) and the made-for-TV thriller Dead Silence (1997), Garner's career in the '90s found the veteran actor once again tapping into his latent ability to provoke laughs in such efforts as Space Cowboys (2000) while maintaining a successful small-screen career by returning to the role of Jim Rockford in several made-for-TV movies. He provided a voice for the popular animatedfeature Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and appeared in the comedy-drama The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002). Garner enjoyed a career resurgance in 2003, when he joined the cast of TV's 8 Simple Rules, acting as a sort of replacement for John Ritter, who had passed away at the beginning of the show's second season. He next appeared in The Notebook (2004), which earned Garner a Screen Actors Guild nomination and also poised him to win the Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award. His last on-screen role was a small supporting role in The Ultimate Gift (2007). In 2008, Garner suffered a stroke and retired acting. He died in 2014, at age 86.

Trivia: It's hard to believe that American actor Walter Brooke, who always looked about 45 years old, actually made his first film in 1942 when he was all of 27. Confined for the most part to B productions after his film debut in Bullet Scars (1942), Brooke's film roles improved as he grew into his familiar businesslike demeanor, as in his plot-motivating character in Conquest of Space (1953). Character actors never seem to be out of work, and Brooke was no exception. A full two decades after his film bow, he was still getting good parts in films like The Graduate (1967) (as Mr. Maguire) and Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). In between film assignments, Brooke kept busy on television. Among his many guest-starring spots (including the 1963 Twilight Zone episode "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain"), Walter Brooke played Bill Herbert for two years on the early serial One Man's Family (1950-52); he was a regular two other soap operas, Three Steps to Heaven (1953) and Paradise Bay (1965); and he was seen as District Attorney Scanlon on the adventure series The Green Hornet (1966), costarring with Van Williams and a young Bruce Lee.

Trivia: Louis Gossett Jr. ranks as one of the most respected African-American actors of stage, screen, and television. Tall, lanky, and bald-pated, Gossett was a basketball player in high school until a leg injury benched him and his interest turned toward acting. In 1953, at the age of 17, Gossett made his Broadway debut in Take a Giant Step, and ended up with a Donaldson Award for the year's best newcomer. Though working steadily on stage and television, Gossett was still interested in basketball. The New York Knicks drafted him out of college in 1958 and he played with them briefly before returning to performing. In 1961, Gossett reprised on film the role he played in the theatrical production of A Raisin in the Sun. It was a well-regarded beginning, and he continued to appear on stage and television, and beginning in 1967, the occasional feature film or television movie. During this early period, he also occasionally sang in nightclubs. Gossett did not become a bona fide star until his Emmy-winning performance in the landmark television miniseries Roots (1977). His career picked up considerably after that. In 1982, Gossett earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing a deceptively heartless drill sergeant in An Officer and a Gentleman. That same year, he also starred in another television series as the wise mentor to an alien prince in The Powers of Matthew Star (1982-1983). After the success of An Officer and a Gentleman, Gossett reprised his roll as the tough sergeant, albeit using different character names, in several films, including the Iron Eagle series, The Punisher (1989), and others. But though he makes an excellent rough guy, Gossett has showed a willingness to let his softer side show through in such made-for-TV movies as Sudie and Simpson (1990).

Trivia: A major figure in American soul music, Isaac Hayes also enjoyed a long and memorable career as an actor and film composer. His score for the motion picture Shaft made him the first African-American to win an Academy Award for music, and was one of the first examples of a pop-based film score that developed a life of its own in the marketplace. Isaac Hayes was born in Covington, TN, on August 20, 1942. Born to a family of sharecroppers, Hayes was raised by his grandparents, and developed an interest in music early in life, joining the church choir at the age of five. By the time he was a teenager, Hayes had also learned how to play piano, organ, and saxophone, but he was forced to drop out of school after the family had moved to Memphis when his grandfather developed a disability. Hayes began performing with a variety of local R&B groups in Memphis, including the Teen Tones, Sir Calvin and His Swinging Cats, and Sir Isaac and the Doo-Dads, as well as working a variety of day jobs. In time, Hayes began attending night school, and received his high-school diploma at the age of 21.In 1962, Hayes cut his first record for a local label, and in 1964 he'd worked his way up to playing keyboards with the house band at Stax Records, just then establishing themselves as one of the South's premier soul music labels. At Stax, Hayes began writing songs with David Porter, and together they penned a long string of hits for Sam & Dave, including "Soul Man," "Hold On, I'm Coming," and "When Something Is Wrong With My Baby," as well as hits for Johnnie Taylor and Carla Thomas. Having established himself as a songwriter, Hayes began to step into the spotlight as a recording artist in 1967 with his first solo album, Presenting Isaac Hayes. While the album was reasonably well received, it was Hayes' second effort, Hot Buttered Soul, that established him as a unique talent in soul music, with its lush, lengthy, and languidly funky interpretations of such songs as "Walk on By" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" (the latter clocking in at an epic 18 minutes). Several more successful albums followed, and in 1970, Hayes was approached to write his first film score by, of all people, Norman Mailer; Mailer went through a brief fling as an experimental filmmaker, and he hired Hayes to provide music for his third cinéma vérité feature, Maidstone.In 1971, Hayes would write his second film score, which would make a much greater impact. Shaft, directed by famed photojournalist Gordon Parks, was a gritty tale of a tough private eye squaring off against both the cops and the mob in New York City, but with a primarily African-American cast, an unusual thing in 1971, and Hayes' score, which blended streetwise grooves with a brassy orchestral backing, became an instant sensation. Shaft's soundtrack album, as well as the single "Theme From Shaft," were major chart successes, and Hayes won an Academy Award for Best Musical Score.While Hayes was certainly proud of his achievements, at one point he'd shown an interest in playing the lead in Shaft as well as writing the music, and after displaying an estimable amount of screen charisma in several concert films (including Wattstax and Save the Children), he was cast alongside Fred Williamson and Lino Ventura in the Italian blaxploitation-style drama Uomini Duri (released in America as Three Tough Guys); Hayes also wrote music for the film. Later that same year, Hayes scored a solo starring role in Truck Turner, but just as his acting career began taking hold, the bottom began to fall out of the blaxploitation market, and Hayes went back to making music, not scoring another film role until Escape From New York in 1981.In the mid-'80s, Hayes returned to acting, and appeared in no fewer than 25 theatrical and television features between 1986 and 1996; most were low-budget genre fare, but several more notable films appeared on his resumé, including the blaxploitation parody/tribute I'm Gonna Git You Sucka!, Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Mario Van Peebles' African-American Western Posse, and Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored, a evocative look at life in a small Southern town in the 1940s. Hayes' acting career got an unexpected boost in 1997, when he was asked to provide the voice of Chef on the animated television series South Park. Originally intended to appear in one episode, Chef went over so well that he became a regular character on the series, and remained with the show for nine years. Hayes also continued to land a number of higher profile film roles in films like Reindeer Games, the 2000 remake of Shaft, and the independent venture Hustle & Flow, for which he was nominated for a Screen Actors' Guild Award. When not busy with acting projects, Hayes continued to play concerts and record new material; he was also a literacy activist, a supporter of children's charities around the world, and operated a pair of successful restaurants in Chicago and Memphis. Hayes died on August 10, 2008.

Trivia: Born in New York City while his father Noah Beery Sr. was appearing on-stage, Noah Beery Jr. was given his lifelong nickname, "Pidge," by Josie Cohan, sister of George M. Cohan "I was born in the business," Pidge Beery observed some 63 years later. "I couldn't have gotten out of it if I wanted to." In 1920, the younger Beery made his first screen appearance in Douglas Fairbanks' The Mark of Zorro (1920), which co-starred dad Noah as Sergeant Garcia. Thanks to a zoning mistake, Pidge attended the Hollywood School for Girls (his fellow "girls" included Doug Fairbanks Jr. and Jesse Lasky Jr.), then relocated with his family to a ranch in the San Fernando Valley, miles from Tinseltown. While some kids might have chafed at such isolation, Pidge loved the wide open spaces, and upon attaining manhood emulated his father by living as far away from Hollywood as possible. After attending military school, Pidge pursued film acting in earnest, appearing mostly in serials and Westerns, sometimes as the hero, but usually as the hero's bucolic sidekick. His more notable screen credits of the 1930s and '40s include Of Mice and Men (1939), Only Angels Have Wings (again 1939, this time as the obligatory doomed-from-the-start airplane pilot), Sergeant York (1941), We've Never Been Licked (1943), and Red River (1948). He also starred in a group of rustic 45-minute comedies produced by Hal Roach in the early '40s, and was featured in several popular B-Western series; one of these starred Buck Jones, whose daughter Maxine became Pidge's first wife. Perhaps out of a sense of self-preservation, Beery appeared with his camera-hogging uncle Wallace Beery only once, in 1940's 20 Mule Team. Children of the 1950s will remember Pidge as Joey the Clown on the weekly TV series Circus Boy (1956), while the more TV-addicted may recall Beery's obscure syndicated travelogue series, co-starring himself and his sons. The 1960s found Pidge featured in such A-list films as Inherit the Wind (1960) and as a regular on the series Riverboat and Hondo. He kicked off the 1970s in the role of Michael J. Pollard's dad (there was a resemblance) in Little Fauss and Big Halsey. Though Beery was first choice for the part of James Garner's father on the TV detective series The Rockford Files, Pidge was committed to the 1973 James Franciscus starrer Doc Elliot, so the Rockford producers went with actor Robert Donley in the pilot episode. By the time The Rockford Files was picked up on a weekly basis, Doc Elliot had tanked, thus Donley was dropped in favor of Beery, who stayed with the role until the series' cancellation in 1978. Pidge's weekly-TV manifest in the 1980s included Quest (1981) and The Yellow Rose (1983). After a brief illness, Noah Beery Jr. died at his Tehachapi, CA, ranch at the age of 81.

Trivia: Supporting actor Dennis Burkley has been onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Character actor George Skaff appeared in numerous movies of the 1970s and on television during the 1980s. He launched his film career with a role in Man Beast (1955). His television credits include guest appearances on series like L.A. Law, In Living Color, Hill Street Blues, and Barney Miller.

Trivia: Film and television actor Sidney Clute amassed well over 100 big- and small-screen credits across a career lasting just over 30 years. As a result of his personal popularity and the friendships borne of his professionalism, Clute's credits extended for three years beyond his death in 1985. Born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1916, he began working professionally in summer stock productions, and didn't make the leap to film work until shortly after World War II. His movie debut came in an uncredited role in William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), playing a drugstore clerk. His next appearance on film was on the small screen, in an uncredited role in the first-season Adventures of Superman episode "Czar of the Underworld", first seen in 1953. None of the five film and television roles he had in 1953 -- in the series Racket Squad, Fritz Lang's The Big Heat, and Russell Rouse's Wicked Woman -- were credited, but they opened a three-decade career. He was busier in 1954, on the sitcom I Married Joan, the crime dramas Waterfront and The Lineup, and small roles in feature films, including Douglas Sirk's ancient-world costume drama Sign of the Pagan, playing a monk. And that was the shape of Clute's career for the next 25 years, individual days of work on series ranging from Westerns to melodramas, broken by the occasional feature-film role. He did have a recurring role on Steve Canyon as Crew Chief Sergeant Gerke, and producer/director Jack Webb used him in three episodes of Dragnet during the 1950s, but it was the action/adventure series Whirlybirds that kept Clute the busiest over its two seasons from 1957 through 1959. His bald head and hangdog features seemed to register well with audiences no matter which side of the law his characters were on, and his Brooklyn accent (which he could hide effectively) even worked well in Westerns. Directors and producers appreciated his ability to nail a character or a line in short order, as well as his genial personality behind the scenes. Clute was working more often in the 1960s, on Dick Powell Theatre, Wagon Train, Hogan's Heroes, Mannix, Ben Casey, Perry Mason, That Girl, and dozens of other series, though he was probably most visible in the revived series Dragnet, which used him in key supporting roles in seven episodes. His best part in that series was in "Public Affairs: DR-07", as a gun nut on a television talk show who takes an open microphone to express his opposition to California's licensing and registration laws. But his chameleon-like ability as an actor was showcased that same year with an appearance on Iron Horse, in the episode "Wild Track", as a duplicitous 19th century businessman involved in a high-stakes poker game on a train besieged by outlaws -- even those familiar with his work elsewhere could forget that it was the familiar face from Dragnet. Clute was just as active in the 1970s, jumping between theatrical thrillers such as Breakout and Executive Action and dozens of television series. Toward the end of the 1970s, he settled into recurring work on Lou Grant as the newspaper's national editor, and finally, in 1982, he landed a co-starring role in a successful series when he was cast as Detective Paul La Guardia in Cagney and Lacey. As the oldest member of the detective squad -- and the most sympathetic to the two female detectives of the title, played by Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless -- Clute was a memorable presence on the series for its first three seasons. He died suddenly in the fall of 1985 from an especially fast-moving form of cancer. In tribute to the actor, producer Barney Rosensweig, a good friend of Clute's, left his name and image in the credits and continued to have his character referred to as an active member of the squad for the remaining four seasons of the show.

Trivia: When asked why he decided upon becoming an actor, Joe Santos tended to trot out the tried-and-true rationale "because I failed at everything else." While attending Fordham University, Santos excelled at football, but lost interest in the sport after a few semi-pro years. By the time he was 30, Santos had been remarkably unsuccessful in a variety of vocations, including railroad worker, tree cutter, automobile importer and tavern owner. While working a construction job in New York, Santos was invited by a friend to sit in on an acting class. This seemed like an easy way to make a living, so Santos began making the audition rounds, almost immediately landing a good part on a TV soap opera. This gig unfortunately led nowhere, and for the next year or so Santos drove a cab for 10 to 11 hours a day. The novice actor's first big break was a part in the 1971 film Panic in Needle Park, which he received at the recommendation of the film's star (and Santos' frequent softball partner) Al Pacino. With the plum part of Sergeant Cruz in the four-part TV drama The Blue Knight (1973), Santos inaugurated a fruitful, still-thriving career in "cop" roles, the best and longest-lasting of which was detective Dennis Becker on the James Garner series The Rockford Files (1974-80). Joe Santos' other series-TV credits include the top-billed part of deadbeat dad Norman Davis in Me and Maxx (1980), Hispanic nightclub comic Paul Rodriguez' disapproving father in AKA Pablo (1984), and Lieutenant Frank Harper in the 1985-86 episodes of Hardcastle and McCormick. One of his final roles was a recurring gig on The Sopranos. Santos died in 2016, at age 84.